Adoption, being Catholic, and stupid legislation

The above link thoroughly and thoughtfully spells out many of the problems now facing Catholic social service agencies across the nation. That is, many are being forced out of aiding adoptions due to legislation that has labeled Catholic agencies as biased.

Catholic agencies are run by - here's a shocker - Catholic ideals, morals, values and guidelines. According to this, they won't place children with homosexual couples, couples who are not married, and various other circumstances that we Catholics believe are less than ideal for a child. However, Catholic agencies do NOT try to stop other agencies from facilitating these types of adoptions. They simply offer the services for those whose faith, ideals and way of life "match" those of the Catholic Church.

They tend to offer these services at very low cost (the adoption of my kids cost us only court costs, about $150 bucks each). They also offer adoption services and counseling for free or very modest fees for the birth parents as well.

Why, oh why, are groups, including our own government, trying to stop this?? What is wrong with giving Catholics and other like-minded folks a place to go to seek out adoption plans and services? We are not trying to stop other agencies from offering such services, but Catholic social service agencies are being put out of the adoption services business.

1 comment:

I have to say that I agree. It never even crossed our minds to approach a Catholic - or any other Christian agency. field. I am all in favor of laws to even the playing. I think we need to be very careful of how we treat religious based agencies as we develop and pass those laws. We did not lack for an adoption agency.